


All the Jewels in the World

by lovehugsandcandy



Series: Necklace Trilogy [3]
Category: Ride or Die (Visual Novel)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-17
Updated: 2019-11-17
Packaged: 2021-02-07 14:36:19
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21459667
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lovehugsandcandy/pseuds/lovehugsandcandy
Summary: Colt doesn't just hate that necklace, he hates everything. Even Ellie. Especially Ellie. ...Maybe not Ellie.Part three of the Necklace stories (Carcanet and Riviere are part 1 and 2).
Relationships: Colt Kaneko/Main Character (Ride or Die)
Series: Necklace Trilogy [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546969
Comments: 5
Kudos: 10





	All the Jewels in the World

Colt woke up slowly; there were no windows in this makeshift shit room, so he never knew what time it was, but it felt late, later than normal. It felt like he slept well, for once; with The Brotherhood breathing down his neck and the constant pressure of earning his dad’s trust on his mind, it felt like sleep had been less a restive escape and more a fugue state between awake and unconscious, alert and weary. Maybe the stress of playing this lethal game of chess had finally taken its toll, finally shut down his racing thoughts and ever-present planning into an exhausted stupor.

Or maybe it had something to do with the girl in his arms. Ellie was there, had actually stayed the night, curled up on her side so he could feel the line of her spine, solid and real against his chest, could feel her lungs expand and contract under his arm as she breathed, even and peaceful into the quiet. He tried to stay as still as possible, not wanting to ruin the moment when things were good and they weren’t in danger and he could pretend that the world outside these walls didn’t exist.

She stirred, slow to wake as he had been, and he had to smile as her eyes opened, blurry gaze slowly sharpening as she woke up, blinking to bring the world into focus.

“Oh crap.” She jumped up. “What time is it?”

“I don’t know…”

She grabbed his phone, flicking it on and gasping. “CRAP! I gotta go!” He sat up to watch her flail around the room. “Clothes! Where are my clothes?”

“Ummm…" _What was happening?_ “Where did you throw them?”

“I don’t know, Jesus. Colt, can you help me?!?”

“What’s the big deal?” He swung his legs to the floor, bracing against the bed to stand.

“Ummm, Logan? I’m staying in his room. He’s gonna notice I’m not there.” She found her shorts, hustling to throw them up her legs and grab the shirt from the floor. “Crap, crap, crap.”

He swung his legs back into bed with a frown.

“Crap, he’s gonna know, crap crap crap.” She hastily threw her hair up and threw the door open. “Gotta go.” Her shirt wasn’t even on yet when she slammed the door.

What the _fuck_.

Colt sat in silence, alone, stunned, for a good minute before he sarcastically waved at the door. “Bye.” He laid back down and stared at the ceiling. For a while.

For a long time actually.

For so long he really did have no idea what time it was. He was hungry a while ago but that faded away so did he miss a meal? Multiple? A whole day?

He just lay there, still naked; at some point, he got cold so he brought the sheets to his chin and continued to stare straight up at a stain of indiscriminate origin on the ceiling, unable to quell the ridiculous thoughts running through his head, thoughts that wouldn’t change anything and would still leave him here, alone in this shit bed in this shit room.

He wished they hadn’t showered together, that she would be sliding into that asshole’s bed with his cum still on her chest.

He wished he had hid her clothes, shoved them into the darkness under his bed so she would have to stay just that much longer.

He wished he had never kissed her, never felt her lips under his so he never knew what he was missing when he was alone here.

He wished he never stopped kissing her, that she was still here under him, encased in his arms.

He didn’t know what he wished but he wished for it all, his hand drifting down to press on the hickie she left by his hip. It wasn’t as dark as the ones he left on her neck, her infinite gentleness present in everything she did, stark contrast to him and the brashness that left blooming bruises in his wake.

He sat and stewed, bitter mind racing as he came to one overarching, far-reaching conclusion. As much as he wanted to hide from the world, he wasn’t gonna be the heartsick loser holed away in his bed. If she wanted to spend her time with the replacement, that was her choice. He had far more important things to do than pine for some goody-two-shoes valedictorian.

And he was far too smart to play a game he couldn’t win.

~~~~~~

“Crap, crap, crap, crap.” Ellie’s curses were whispers, thrown into the shadows of the shop as she finished throwing her shirt on and tiptoed up the stairs as fast as she could.

She slid into bed, breathing a small sigh of relief when Logan didn’t stir. She had just started to get comfortable, making the perfect divot in the pillow for her head, when he spoke.

“Ellie?” Her heart dropped. “Where were you?”

She opened her eyes to see him peering at her, the confusion written on his face plainly giving way to hurt. “I…”

“You know you can just tell me, right? I’m not gonna judge you.” He frowned. “I just… I worry about you.”

“You don’t need to.”

“I know.” He rolled onto his side so he could look her head on, early rays of the sun bathing him in a brilliant glow. “But I do.”

She sat up in a huff, leaning back so she could glare out the window and avoid his gaze. “Everyone thinks I’m this helpless damsel. I don’t need people to worry about me. I need people to let me live.”

“I get it, I just…I got you into this mess, here, with the crew and the shop.” He followed her up, sitting against the headboard so their shoulders brushed. “I have some responsibility for any shit that happens here.” 

“You don’t have any responsibility for me!”

“I do if you’re making dangerous decisions! You know what happens to people like us.”

She rolled her eyes. “You say that like we’re so different.”

“We ARE! You have a comfortable life and-”

“We’re both car thieves now, Logan.” The words hurt but they were true. After the Grapevine job, they were more the same than they were different.

He studied her. “But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you.”

She sighed, gazing out the window at the sun lighting up the avenue.

“Ellie?” His voice was quieter now, gentle. “Where were you?”

She turned to him and took a steadying breath. “Downstairs.”

“In the shop?”

“…With Colt.” The look on her face dared him to speak.

“What?” Apparently, he dared. “Colt?!?!”

“Yeah. I’ve been hooking up with Colt.”

“Seriously? That ass-”

“You said you wouldn’t judge.” She swatted a stray hair behind her ear, annoyed.

“But…him?”

“Yeah.”

Logan took a deep breath, choosing his words carefully. “I just think…you deserve someone who has the capacity to treat you right.”

“Come on, he’s not that-”

“Colt has the capacity to love himself. And ride a motorcycle. And…that’s about it.”

“Logan…” she groaned, smile peeking out despite herself.

He threaded his arm around her shoulder to give her a squeeze, a semi-hug that told her everything was gonna be ok. “You know I just worry about you. I know you can take care of yourself. I just…Jeez, troublemaker, I have no idea what you see in him.”

“I…I like him.”

“Him? Of all people?”

“You don’t…you don’t know him like I do.” She looked at her hands. No one else knew how his hands gentled when they slid through her hair, curved over her waist, and touched every single inch of her laid bare. No one else knew how he clung to those close to him, jealous eyes and resentful stares belying a deep fear that the ones he cared for would vanish in the night. And no one else saw him last night, plaintive, forlorn, asking her to stay in his bed as if it were physically painful when she walked away.

Logan crossed his hands over his chest. “If he hurts you, I swear to God…”

“He won’t.”

The eye roll she got in return was so extreme she felt her face ache in sympathy. “Ellie, he’s an asshole!”

“I know. But he won’t.”

He tried to smile, a weak quirk of his lips, but it didn’t reach his eyes, disbelief plain as day on his face. She tried to smile back, to reassure him. She didn’t think it worked.

~~~~~

Colt slung the backpack over his shoulder with a sigh, closing the door behind him. It had been easy to convince his father to let him hunt down their contact in Fresno, a simple job to find the guy and learn what he knew about The Brotherhood.

Simple, easy, painless, and a way to get the hell out of the shop for a while so he could fix his head.

He couldn’t afford to be distracted by some girl, no matter how clever and tough and attractive she was, _especially _when she went running back to Logan at every single goddamn opportunity. He had told himself, _fuck_, he had sworn that he wouldn’t go down this road the first time they slept together. She was shacked up with that fucking prick in the loft and he knew, he _knew _that what they did only took place in the dark. He fucking knew that his claim on her nights was secret, something only for the two of them, and that any intimacy they shared started only when the world had fallen asleep and ended well before daylight.

But then they kept hooking up. And she kept sneaking down to see him. And he kept hating that utter asshole who got to claim her days, burning rage threatening to boil over numerous times.

Once she made it clear that she wasn’t sticking around through sunrise, he realized he was in over his head.

So this had to stop. _Now_. He wasn’t weak, not for her, not for anyone, and this trip was a way to prove it and get the fuck away, just until he had his head on straight and was able to put this entire thing out of his mind.

It was dead quiet on the shop floor as he walked to his bike. As he was running through the mental checklist in his head, trying to plot out every step along the way to obtaining the information he needed, the moonlight reflected off the metal steps leading to the loft. He stopped, eyes caught up in the glow and then sliding to the loft door. It was silent and dark up there.

He wondered…

He shook his head. _No_. This was a shitty idea.

He walked over to the bike, making sure he had everything, checking his pockets, and glanced up the loft stairs again. _No_. Shitty, _shitty_ idea.

He had swung his leg over the bike, hand on the throttle, ready to go, when he peered up the stairs one last time. He didn’t know what possessed him but, now that he had the horrible sanity-killing idea, he knew it wasn’t leaving his mind. So he got off, leaving his bag and shoes by the kickstand, and silently edged up the stairs, cursing himself the entire way. He turned the knob, carefully, poking his head in to make sure it was still before stepping inside.

The giant windows showcased almost all of Gramercy Park, pale moonlight illuminating the pavement, the storefronts, all of it in a dull glow that obscured the actual grime and rot of the neighborhood. It looked beautiful from here, a marked comparison to his shit room with no windows and bare walls and a leak spreading steadily over his head. His eyes easily adjusted; he knew this room well, had stayed in the loft on visits when he was younger, before he was discarded and replaced.

A quick glance at the couch found it empty. Against his better judgement, he turned his eyes to the bed, where there were two distinct lumps under a faded blanket. He stared, eyes burning, stomach roiling, fists clenching, glaring at Ellie and Logan sharing a bed, bathed in the moon’s glow. He stood, frozen, watching two chests rise and fall, soft pairs of breath in the silent room, encased in moonlight. Violent red was steadily creeping into his vision, graying the edges, periphery fading so all he could see were two bodies, peacefully asleep and oblivious to the rage churning his mind.

When he had looked his fill, when he stood long enough that he was sure that his foolish mind and broken heart received the message, he turned to go, fists still painfully clenched. He headed back downstairs, grabbed his shoes, and walked his bike out the bay door, careful not to turn the engine until he was halfway down the street, out of sight of the shop and of anyone who had a clear view out the window in a room where they never slept alone.

~~~~~

It wasn’t like Ellie was counting the days, but she was counting the days.

The first day passed in a blur with school and classes. She knew she didn’t see Colt but just figured that their paths didn’t cross at all.

The second day, she snuck down to his room, fully expecting their usual banter, but the room was dark, empty. She frowned and wondered, heavy footsteps leading her back up to the loft.

The third day, she paid closer attention and realized that he wasn’t in the garage at all. She guessed that she had subconsciously realized it, no sarcastic exchanges in the shop, no secretive exchanges in private. She was angry at first-_he didn’t even tell her he was going anywhere!_-then tried to tell herself she had no right to be upset. She was still angry.

The fourth day, she had to ask Kaneko, anger fading into concern. “On a job up north.” Well then. _Helpful_.

She was fully distracted the fifth day, unable to concentrate on her homework, every engine roar outside making her turn to the bay doors, face falling when she realized it wasn’t him.

The sixth day, Logan took to trying to cheer her up, grabbing Kelso’s for lunch and trying to teach her to change a set of brake pads. As much as she appreciated it, his efforts didn’t work.

Finally, on the seventh day, just when she was starting to panic, unanswered calls and texts weighing heavy on her mind, just then, the rumble of a motorcycle pulled her from her thoughts. She stood before thinking about it, watching him slow to a stop and swing his leg over before nudging the kickstand out with his toe. He didn’t even look up, fiddling with something on the dash, and she looked at Logan. She shrugged. He helplessly shrugged back.

Finally, she pushed off the car she was leaning on and headed over. Colt didn’t even look up at her shuffling steps.

“Welcome back.”

He raised his eyebrows in a silent response, eyes trained on the helmet in his hands.

“Where were you?

He shrugged. "Had a job to do.” He still wasn’t looking at her, messing with the buckle to the chinstrap.

“You’ve been gone for a week.”

“I was working.”

“You didn’t even text me back.”

“Been busy.” Another shrug as he placed the helmet on his bike, careful hands at odds with his harsh tone.

“Seriously?” Her voice fell to an angry whisper. “I texted you to see if you were alive every day for the last three days and all you can say is ‘been busy’?!?“

“Yeah.” Finally, he looked at her and Ellie pulled back at the barely contained fury in his eyes. “I’m fine. I can take care of myself, by myself. I don’t need you checking up on me. I don’t fucking need you at all.”

She was stunned, gaping at him as he pushed by her to walk away, shoulders in an angry line. He was halfway through the shop when Logan’s cutting voice made him pause.

“You asshole. She was just worried about you, no need to be a prick.”

She could see Colt’s face, darkening degree by degree as he slowly turned around. “Why don’t you just mind your fucking business.”

Logan rolled his eyes, stepping closer. “Maybe it is my business if you treat her like shit.”

Her heart dropped. It was like watching a car accident in slow motion, seeing the cars heading for each other and being powerless to stop it, only able to tense up and wait for the crash.

“Listen, you fuck.” Colt mirrored his action, stepping closer to Logan, shoulders back. “She’s a big girl. I think she can take care of herself.”

She winced. She could almost see the gears in Logan’s head turning, him remembering their conversation where he worried about her heart. “You don’t think you should take care of her?”

"Oh, don’t you worry. I took good care of her for you when she snuck out of your bed at night.”

Logan’s glare could cut glass and her stomach plummeted. “Excuse me?”

“So go shove all this fake protective shit. I really don’t think you have any reason to get involved here.”

Ellie moved towards them both; by this point, Mona and Toby had noticed the confrontation, stopping to stare, but she only had eyes for the pair in front of her, her internal alarms screaming as she took in the set of Colt’s jaw, the fire in Logan’s eyes.

“Well, maybe I actually care about her and I’m not some sociopathic asshole running around desperate to impress his father.”

She could see it happening in slow motion: Mona’s whispered “_Oh shit_,” the tensing of Colt’s hand, Logan’s sneer. She had just opened her mouth to say something, anything to stop this, when Colt sprung, throwing his entire body into the punch, first swinging and connecting with Logan’s jaw. The noise was sickening, flesh and bone connecting, Logan’s face spinning with the impact as he fell back a step and Ellie gasped.

And then everything sped up. They moved, faster than Ellie could blink, fists hurtling through the air so quickly she couldn’t keep track, couldn’t tell who was hitting and who was hurting. There was blood, somewhere, from someone, but she couldn’t even tell, just wanted to avert her eyes from the barbaric display as two people she foolishly cared about assaulted the ever-loving hell out of each other.

“Idiots.” Mona scoffed behind her. “Just a pair of absolute fucking morons.”

Ellie couldn’t watch but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. “What if they hurt each other?”

“I hope they do. Serves them right.”

Maybe Mona didn’t care but Ellie did. “Guys!” Logan landed a hit to Colt’s face and ignored her. “Logan!” Colt fought back with a jab to the jaw and Ellie winced. “COLT!” Her shriek finally made him turn, eyes wild the widening in pain as Logan’s fist slammed into his side. She winced. She could hear the thud of impact from where she stood.

“You mother fucking-” Colt doubled over but sprang up quickly, tacking Logan to the ground, fists flying as Logan’s flew back, alternating between protecting his head and trying to land a shot at Colt’s head. Ellie screamed again but they kept hitting, grappling, ferocious and wild in a pile of limbs and rage.

“Enough.” Kaneko’s voice carried through the shop, low but with a hint of malice that made everyone pause, even the two boys locked in full-body contact on the concrete floor.

With a sneer, Colt clambered up, blood dripping steadily from a cut under his left eye. Logan moved slower, favoring his right side and dabbing at a bloody lip, but stood as well, fixing Colt with a glower. They both stood, the calm after the storm, wreckage painted over crimson knuckles, watching Kaneko step closer.

Kaneko’s voice was tightly controlled but Ellie could hear annoyance, anger, and a hint of exhaustion seeping through. “Logan, upstairs. Colt, my office. Now.” He turned and walked away. Colt straightened his jacket before stalking after his father. If she hadn’t been paying attention, she would have missed his eyes cutting to hers as he stomped by, a flash of storm clouds under knitted brows. In an instant, it was gone and all she could see were his shoulders, weighed down and tense, disappearing into the back.

~~~~~

Everything hurt. Colt was trying to ignore the pinpoints of pain that coursed through his body, but it was hard when every single cell felt sore. He had just rolled over to try to sleep off the worst of it when his door opened, creak of the hinge loud in the silent room. He looked up from his sprawl on his bed and groaned. “Just go away.”

Ellie shook her head, slipping off her shoes so she could crawl across the bed to him. Her eyes were so concerned, so sad, that he had to close his before he reached for her. When she got to his head, she put an ice pack against his eye, still looking at him with worried eyes.

He waved her off, pushing her hand away so the ice fell to the bed. “Shouldn’t you be taking care of your boyfriend?”

“Jesus Christ, Colt.” He rolled away from her. He should have stayed in that shitty motel. He didn’t want to come back for this bullshit. “Colt, let me just…”

“Stop, Ellie. Just stop.” He watched her face fall at his tone, harsh and unforgiving in the quiet room, hanging in the air as she crouched over him. “I want you to leave.”

Her face fell further and Colt had to bite his lip before he said something he regretted, something that made his time away pointless.

“But…” She pulled back, eyes cautious, putting space in between them.

It was easier to think when she was further away, when he didn’t have to watch those expressive eyes emote pain. “Please leave.”

She opened her mouth to speak but reconsidered, closing it again with a sigh. With one last look, she stood and walked out the door, closing it softly behind her.

He had just shoved the ice pack onto the floor and settled back down into bed when the door opened with a slam. “You asshole.” She slammed the door even harder behind her, stalking over to the bed. “You asshole!“

“What the fuck did I-”

She was shaking, fists were clenched at the end of stiff arms vibrating in rage. “I knew you were a jerk but this is low, even for you. You think you can treat people like that? Sleep with me and act like you care and then vanish?” Tears were pooling in her eyes; he would have felt guilty if he weren’t so furious. "You can’t ghost me. We...we slept together. And I live here!”

“Yeah, you live here with your fucking boyfriend!“ He struggled to sit up, side aching with the effort. “Remember him? The guy upstairs?”

“You know it’s not like that, stop calling him that!”

“It’s exactly like that, you two sharing a bed, all happy couple, fucking congratulations, I asked you to-”

“He’s my friend and I’m kinda homeless right now!”

“Well then, I’ll just invite my friends to stay here too, hell, why not? Tons of room in my bed, I can fuck my way through the homeless population of LA.”

“You’re being ridiculous. I never slept with Logan.”

“Bullshit.”

“It’s the truth, you emotionally constipated assho-”

“I asked you to LEAVE!” His chest was heaving and he held back a wince; the shout made his ribs ache. His side hurt, his eye hurt, and all he wanted was to lay down and sleep until he forgot that his heart hurt most of all.

They stared at each other. Tears were streaming down Ellie’s face now, wet trails glistening as they slid over her lips and dripped down her jaw. “You need to listen to me.” Her voice was sure, low, certain. “I never slept with him. Ever. We kissed once, before I ever met you. So you can take your attitude-”

“Wait-”

“I never slept with anyone before you. I never had a boyfriend. But-”

“Wait just a-”

“Colt, you can’t-”

“STOP. Just stop. For a second. Please.” He rubbed a hand over his face, trying to make sense of what he was hearing. “I don’t…You never….not before we…”

“What?”

“Back up. You didn’t hook up with Logan?”

“No.”

“You never had sex before we…”

“No? No, I didn’t.”

“Why didn’t you-” His mind raced, thoughts flying to the first time they ever had sex, in this very room, Ellie on top of him like a fucking goddess, sliding down onto his cock with a low moan that drove him insane. “I didn’t know-” He tried to remember every second, searching for any hint that it was her first time; he came up empty. _Fuck_. A girl like her deserved roses and candlelight, not stolen moments in a hidden-away basement bedroom in the front for a criminal enterprise.

The bed dipped as she sat next to him, putting her palm to his cheek so she could catch his eye. “I know you didn’t know. I didn’t want to tell you.”

“Why not?”

She shrugged, blush spreading over her cheeks. “I was embarrassed.”

“Why? Everybody has a first time. I would have-”

“You would have what?”

“I dunno.” He wracked his brain. “I would have tried to make it special, at least. For you. If I knew.”

“I didn’t want you to know. I guess I thought you wouldn’t want me.” She looked down, suddenly shy. “I think you don’t want me a lot of the time.”

“The hell would you think that?”

Another shrug. “We only hook up when I sneak down here.”

“Am I supposed to sneak into the loft?”

“No, but…” She twisted her hands together on her lap. “I guess I just thought…I know you. You fought to get into the crew, clawed your way back into your dad’s life, and now you’re taking on The Brotherhood. You fight for what you want. It’s in your blood, it’s who you are.” She bit her lip. “I just thought… If you wanted me, you would fight for me.”

“I wanted to rip that fucking necklace from your neck.” His jaw clenched. “I fucking wanted to take every single piece of him off of you and replace it.” He didn’t recognize the voice coming from his mouth, anger coursing through him, both bone-deep and shimmering on the surface. "But you acted like this meant nothing every time you ran out the door to jump in his bed.”

“You mean every time I tried to hide the fact that I felt like a dirty little secret?”

Colt gaped. How could she have gotten this so wrong? "How were you the secret? I thought you and Logan were together.”

“No.” She shook her head, eyes still sad. “Not at all.”

Hell, how could _he _have gotten it so wrong? “You want me to fight for you?” He leaned closer, ignoring the stitch in his side to cup her cheek, still damp with sadness. “I’d rather fight with you by my side.” She didn’t pull away so he leaned closer, familiar heat arcing between them, warmer and warmer until he was engulfed and the only thing he could do was pull her lips to his in a desperate attempt to quell the flame.

She moaned into his mouth, low and lusty, the noise drawing his lips down her jaw to her neck, so he could taste where the sound was vibrating at her throat, then lower, biting designs in bare skin where a chain usually lie.

“I won’t wear it, not anymore.” Her words were breathy as her fingers curled into her hair.

“I don’t give a shit what you wear.”

“That’s a lie.”

“Wear whatever you want, as long as you’re only fucking me.”

She pulled his head up from where he was speaking into her shoulder, fingers in his hair lifting until she could look him in the face with her wide, questioning eyes. Whatever she saw there was apparently enough and he could do nothing but sigh his surrender into her lips.

She was gentle, far more than he deserved, careful hands spinning up his sides to slip the shirt off his head, the pants off his legs. He tried to return the favor but knew his own fingertips were unable, hands rough, harshly digging into every inch of skin as he shed her clothes from her body, powerless to stop them from digging possessive divots into skin and muscle and flesh he needed to claim as his own.

She didn’t seem mind, pushing him back against the bed so she could move over him, spreading her legs so her core, dripping and hot and needy, needy for him, only for him, her core was right over him and then sliding down as Colt’s eyes screwed shut and he had to take shallow breaths so he could try and hold onto some semblance of sanity.

She had just gotten into a good rhythm, the grind if her hips making light flare behind his eyelids, when her knee hit his side; damn, that was gonna be a nasty bruise. She noticed his expression, trailing a soft hand over the spot where Logan nailed him. “Come here, sit up.”

She helped him move with careful hands so he could lean against the headboard, fingers so gentle at his back that his breath and his heart caught in his throat. Once she was sure he was comfortable, she dropped into his lap, taking him inside her again, eyes never leaving his face, inches from his own.

This wasn’t how he and Ellie had sex; hell, this wasn’t how he ever slept with anyone, so close it felt like her eyes were peering into every dark corner of his soul, seeing every weakness, every flaw. He couldn’t bring himself to look away, hands cradling her thighs as if they were glass, a fragile beauty of skin and bone. He realized that he was the only one who had touched her like this, unknowingly the only one who had seen her in these moments, when his jealousy consumed his mind and prevented him from seeing what was right in front of him.

“What’s wrong?” Her big brown eyes were staring straight into his soul.

She was so tight, so hot around him, and it took every inch of his self-control not to thrust. It was like the sweetest torture he ever felt, an intense interrogation with the strength her walls, like a vise around him, her eyes looking through him. She wasn’t even moving anymore, just watching him, so close they were sharing the same breath, so close there was no room for lies between them, so close that the only thing he could possibly speak was the painful, selfish truth.

His voice was broken. “I want you. For real.” He had to look away, look anywhere but those eyes. “You’re in his bed every night…and, I just….I want you here.”

Fuck, he was weak, as weak as his father claimed in angry words and hushed whispers, words designed to push him out and keep him out. She brought it out of him like it was pulled straight from his weak soul and his weak heart, brought to the surface from the deep, dark places where he hid it from the world. His weakness, his utter failure, was obvious as lines on his skin, running across the surface; she made him weak like a siren calling his heart to crash on a distant shore. All his life, he fought against any and all weakness, determined to eradicate it from his soul. But if losing all weakness meant losing her? Hell, he had already failed.

“You have me, Colt.” He hissed as she shifted, a slow roll of her hips, burying him deeper. “You always did.”

All he could focus on, all his weak _weak _mind could see, was her face as she took her pleasure from him, his eyes trailing from the delicate flutter of each individual eyelash to the flush on her cheeks, spreading incrementally outward up her cheekbone, rosy line edging to her hair, to the bow of her lips, so close that each breath was a puff of air that landed on his own lips. Sharing the same air was an intimacy that took his own breath away, to be replaced with the air from her lungs.

“You’re staring.” Her eyes were narrow slits.

“You’re gorgeous.”

“I’m yours.”

His hands moved before he could think, pulling her closer so he could steal the exhale directly from her mouth, lips sealing around hers in a kiss so deep he could feel it in his toes. When he pulled back, her eyes were glistening again but he thought that these tears maybe marked a different emotion. She started moving again, a swivel of her hips that quickly grew more frantic, harsher. He moved to match her, thumb sliding through her folds to touch the place where their bodies met, pushing electric currents of pleasure through his veins.

When his hand finally reached her clit, she sagged against him, hips still chasing her high and his thumb tracing patterns that made her breath unsteady in his ear. It only took three more thrusts of his hips, swiveling his hips so the last drag slid over the spot he discovered their very first time, in this very bed, when he unknowingly took her virginity and she unknowingly took his heart.

The noise from her throat, a high whine that spoke of pleasure and satisfaction and a million different things he couldn’t verbalize, her walls, tightening and clenching around him, hell _everything _just pulled his orgasm from him as he held her close, hand at her lower back holding on for dear life as he sunk into oblivion.

When he was finally able to open his eyes, they had somehow slid into a tangled heap, lying flat on the bed. He was naked and sweaty and sore, eye aching and side starting to throb where she was draped over him.

He never wanted to get up.

He thumbed a fading mark on her neck. He always thought the hickies were because he wanted to show the world that she belonged to him, that she was his, tied to him in a way deeper and more meaningful than a piece of jewelry around her neck.

But maybe it was he who wanted to belong to her.

She stiffened. “Crap.” He lifted his head to watch her leap from the bed, grabbing her clothes and haphazardly throwing them on with a speed he wouldn’t have believed if he had not unfortunately seen it before.

“Ellie?”

She put one finger up as she opened the door and then was gone, out the door so quickly he couldn’t be sure that she had been there at all, disappearing like a wisp of his fractured mind. He dropped his head against the pillow with a groan.

He had just started getting angry again, internal voices starting a furious chorus, when the doorknob turned; almost as soon as she had left, she was back, sliding the door open, wheeze in her inhale a remnant of her sprint across the shop. In her arms was a bundle of something, he couldn’t make out. He lifted his head to squint at her.

She moved to his dresser, opening drawers at random until she found what she was looking for in the second from the top. She rustled around for a minute, old magazine crinkling as she pushed it to the side, and then dropped the stuff in.

“What the hell was that?” he asked as she slid back into bed, wrapping his arm back around her waist with a sigh.

“My things. You think I’m supposed to stay here with no toothbrush? No clothes?”

He had to swallow to stop the words from coming unbidden from his lips as his brain seized; it took a minute for his heart to settle and his mouth to release the easy reply. “You can definitely stay here with no clothes.”

She laughed, threading their fingers together.

“No, seriously. We have a clothes-optional policy here.”

She spun in his arms, trailing her palm down his chest. “You are definitely taking advantage of that policy.”

“Maybe it should be a no clothing allowed policy.” His fingers found the bare patch of skin at her back, warm and real under his hands.

“Mmmmh…” She leaned closer. “There sure are a lot of policies here. If you want me to stay down here, I think you need to simplify it a little.”

“Oh, I can simplify it very easily.” He pulled the shirt over her head, easily, ducking his head to tease the curve of her neck before he caught her eye, gaze earnest. “I want you to stay down here.”

Her answering grin was as bright than any piece of jewelry he had ever seen. Spark plug be damned, he was gonna keep that look on her face as long as he could.


End file.
